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Michaelmas is celebrated on 2 dates of the year. They are the dates that the Ripper went out to murder his victims. There were numerous newspaper reports stating that a garment was discovered that had ‘Michalemas daisies and golden lillies’ at the murder scene of Catherine Eddowes on the night of the ‘Double Event’.Read More

His family probably shuttled him around between their homes. The date was 4 February 1891, and it appears that his mental health had now deteriorated to a state that the family, who had been sheltering and supporting him, could no longer cope. On his admission, the register of patients stated that he was suffering from ‘mania’ and he was examined by a doctor, Edmund Houchin, who wrote a report on his findings and declared Kosminski insaneRead More

For centuries the East End had been a great melting pot, and until this massive flood of immigrants it had dealt well with incomers, but now it was stretched to breaking point, and anyone who could afford to move away did, leaving a population who were, by and large, scraping by. Survival was the key, food and lodging the most important aims. Typhoid, cholera and venereal disease were rife, and the area had the highest birth rate, the highest death rate and the lowest marriage rate in the whole of London. Housing was the big problem. Whereas parts of Whitechapel and Spitalfields had once been prosperous and semi-rural, demand throughoutRead More

Allow me to introduce myself to you. My name is Aaron Kosminski. You won’t know me by name…yet. I was born in 1865 in Poland. In the early 1880s my family escaped the Russian pogroms, and we were lucky to take refuge in London, where I lived together with my two brothers and sister in Greenfield Street, E1. A hairdresser by trade, I suffered serious mental illness – probably paranoid schizophrenia – and was prone to auditory hallucinations and sexual ‘self-abuse’. My erratic behaviour was known to police in the area, I was even put under 24-hour surveillance until IRead More